On Monday, March 4, the Social Communication Council of the National Congress of Brazil approved a request to speed up voting on a proposal to federalize the investigation of crimes against journalists, said newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.
The Uruguayan government has opened up six frequencies to community radio stations after a public call for proposals, said the website Voces.
In Brazil defamation currently carries a minimum sentence of only three months, but that could change to two years if a penal code reform project currently being discussed in the Senate is approved.
Jaime Guadalupe Domínguez, the director of a news site in the Mexican city of Ojinaga -- in the Northern state of Chihuahua -- was killed in the afternoon of March 3 by a group of armed men, reported the newspaper Diario de Chihuahua.
The Chilean narrative journalist Cristian Alarcón and Mexican reporter Marcela Turati talked about two very different topics during the forum “The new long-form journalism in Latin America: A dialogue between academics and journalists,"
Brazilian photographer Jean Schwarz for the newspaper Zero Hora was beaten while he tried to cover a meeting of road workers in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, on Jan. 22, reported the publication.
After more than 20 denied requests in the last five years, well-known Cuban blogger and activist Yoani Sánchez was granted on Wednesday a passport to travel abroad.
Mexico and Cuba were the worst places for journalists in the Americas, tensions between the government and privately-owned media continued to escalate in Ecuador and Argentina, and Canada lost its position as press freedom leader in the continent.
Lúcio Flávio Pinto, founder and lone reporter for the blog Jornal Pessoal, has won eight prizes, published 22 books and been sued 33 times for his work as a journalist. Pinto's experience is emblematic of judicial censorship in Brazil.
The Venezuelan government will sue newspaper El País – Spain’s largest newspaper – for the fake photo of President Hugo Chávez that it published last week, said Minister of Communication and Information Ernesto Villegas in an interview Sunday with public broadcaster TeleSUR.